QuestionPoint: 24/7 reference services

User Group Meeting This Thursday

Our next QuestionPoint user group meeting will be held this Thursday, March 15, at the Public Library Association conference in Philadelphia.

If you won't be in Philadelphia, you can join us via WebEx!! To join the online meeting, you must register first. Once you register, the meeting link will be sent to your email address.  Register here for the online meeting.

In addition to the QuestionPoint update, we will also have two guest speakers:
Betty Morganstern, Information Services Librarian at Anne Arundel County Public Library (Maryland) and Bill Pardue, Digital Services Librarian at Arlington Heights Public Library (Illinois). Betty and Bill will discuss how they've promoted their virtual reference service at their respective libraries.

To attend in Philadelphia:
Date: Thursday March 15
Location: Courtyard by Marriott Downtown, room: Salon IVM
Time: 12:30 - 1:30 pm ET

Virtual User Group: notes of August 2011 meeting

The latest QuestionPoint virtual user group meeting was on 3 days at 3 different times (August 30, 31 and September 1) and attended by a total of 98 QuestionPoint librarians. Each meeting was facilitated by a member of the product team: Carol Bonnefil, Susan McGlamery, or Paula Rumbaugh. To listen to the recording of the September 1 session, access either the streaming version or the file (requires an Arf player).  Here are the PowerPoint slides used for all 3 meetings:

Aug 11 user group

View more presentations from OCLC.

Meeting notes:

We opened the meeting with an overview of the QuestionPoint community. We then discussed the enhancements to QuestionPoint’s Policy Pages, introduced in the 21 August install, including (1) , linking from specified fields in the Policy Pages to the WorldCat Registry and (2) new fields in the Policy Pages. Additional details on the 21 August release are available in the Release Notes published in this blog. We noted the revisions to the Policy Page guidelines and the latest Policy Page day, which we celebrated on September 2.

We then reviewed the new features and enhancements of the past year, including customized wait messages for chat queues and the knowledge base as a web service.

The update ended with a look to the future and what we are planning next for QuestionPoint. Based on our user survey (summer of 2010) we have identified several new initiatives, including a new texting option using Upside Wireless, further optimization of QP for mobile devices and improved forms management and form field reporting. We also announced plans for two pilot programs to test two new features: the ability to accept attachments from patrons and to forward email messages directly into QuestionPoint.

Following are some of the questions that were asked and answered during the three sessions.

Qwidget:

• Further development of the Qwidget to accommodate Android versions. This can be a moving target, but development continues for various devices, including additional Android versions and the iPad.
• Do you have technical experts who can help us set up the Qwidget for Facebook? Our support@oclc.org can help a great deal, and they will pass any questions they cannot answer on to one of us in the product area.
• Is it possible to have a practice Qwidget? Suggestions include placing the Qwidget on your intranet, with an organized practice day, or on any page that’s not publicized.

Full Transaction Searching:

• Is it possible to have full transaction searching on the Review Transcripts area? In order for libraries to perform actions on search results (such as Follow Up), the search is not available from Review Transcripts, as this area does not permit actions on questions.
• Will transactions search allow me to see questions that belong to other libraries? Yes, if you had a “relationship” with that question then the transaction will be searchable.

Chat:

• Are wait messages only for when patrons are not picked up? Yes. We do not yet have automated “still searching” messages.
• Why can I not see the IP address for Qwidget sessions? If the Administrator has set up the Qwidget to permit IP addresses to be gathered, the IP addresses are seen in the “Review Transcripts”area. They are currently not available in the Chat monitor.
• Are our scripts at the institution or the group level? In a cooperative situation – where the librarians may be answering questions from non-local patrons, the chat librarian sees the patron library’s scripted messages at both the group and institution level. The chatting librarian always sees his or her own personal scripts and institution’s scripts.
• Is it still recommended that we assign descriptive codes ONLY to questions from our library’s patrons and NOT other library’s patrons? Yes, if you are a member of the 24/7 Cooperative.
• How can our librarians practice chat? See the the practice link on the My QuestionPoint home page.

Policy Pages:

• A comment from one librarian for everyone: it is very helpful if everyone puts out a username and password for their databases/access to catalog & pages. When we do NOT have that, we are limited in what suggestions we can make to students.  For members of the 24/7 Reference Cooperative: it is very helpful if you can provide access to your databases to Cooperative librarians – this helps the Cooperative provide better service.
• Another librarian urges all 24/7 participants to link to a list of all databases available at the library. If you cannot provide a link, then do list your databases in the policy pages.
• After linking to the Registry and then clicking to enlarge the map, the wrong location was displayed. It is possible that your institution Registry maps the center of the zip code area rather than your address. This may be because the geolocation utility originally used to populate the Registry field used the coordinates of the center of the zip code area rather than the exact address. Suggestion: Copy from the Registry instead of Linking. This uses the address rather than the coordinates. You may also manually input the address. The WC Registry editor at your library can use the easy fix in the Registry to correct the map. Contact support@oclc.org for more information.
• One attendee used Google map’s code to embed the map in the policy pages directly, rather than linking to the Registry.
• Is it possible to embed more than one map in the Map field? No, not at this time. 

Miscellaneous:

• Are there plans to provide the option to mark a New question as Active? When a patron responds "thank you" to an answer, the question doesn't need more info/action, but stays in the New list. We keep our questions open for about 2 weeks. Questions do go from bold type to regular type after they’ve been opened. We have logged this enhancement request for later review.
• Are there plans to modify reports to allow us to export data to Excel? Highlight, copy, and paste into an Excel cell is usually faster and just as good as an export. But we do have this enhancement logged.
• Can we call the knowledge base something else? Absolutely. Please feel free to call any patron-facing feature whatever you like.
• What about other new additions we would like to see? We are following the 2010 QuestionPoint survey responses closely and are happy to say we’ve implemented or are actively working on the top 6 or 7 options. We hope to do another survey next summer.
• How do we set up email notification? This is done in the Administration module, Institution tab, Settings link.

Many thanks to all who attended!

Dates Set for Next QuestionPoint Virtual User Group Meeting

We look forward to “seeing” you at the Second 2011 QuestionPoint Virtual User Group meeting.  This meeting will be held in three sessions 30-31 August and 1 September, to accommodate the many time zones of the QuestionPoint global community.  We will cover the enhancements that have been implemented since our last meeting in February 2011, including our next scheduled install on 21 August, and answer any questions you may have.   We’ll also share feedback from the User Group meeting held at ALA Annual.

Our update should take 20-30 minutes.  The remaining hour will be yours to discuss topics of interest to you.  Between now and 26 August, please e-mail me topics you’d like the group to discuss.  Send your requests to paula_rumbaugh@oclc.org.

Please choose one of the following sessions. (Times are shown for both the Eastern time zone in the U.S. and GMT time for international participants.)  Registration is required so we can distribute the necessary log-in/call-in information to you.  Please be sure that messages from messenger@webex.com are allowed through to you so your confirmation and log-in information is not caught in a spam blocker.

Tuesday, 30 August, 11:00 to 12:30 ET (15:00 to 16:30 GMT)  Best for eastern and central North America and South America.  Please register at https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/j.php?ED=159769037&RG=1&UID=1238067797&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D   

Wednesday, 31 August, 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM ET (4:00 PM to 5:30 PM PT; 23:00 to 00:30, 31 August, GMT)  We expect western North American and Central American users to find this time best for them, as well as Australian and Asian users.  Please register at https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/j.php?ED=159769852&RG=1&UID=1238073907&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D

Thursday, 1 September, 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM ET (12:00 to 13:30 GMT)  We hope this time will be convenient for European, South African, and Middle Eastern users. Please register at https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/j.php?ED=159772277&RG=1&UID=1238084842&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D. 

Sessions will be conducted in English and recorded for those who cannot attend.

 

 

Virtual User Group Meeting, 8-9 February 2011

Almost 200 QuestionPoint librarians attended the Virtual User Group meeting the second week in February.   The QuestionPoint update was offered in three sessions to accommodate the worldwide time zones of the members.  During the QuestionPoint community update, we reminded members of the monthly update that is now published on this blog, which covers membership, usage, Cooperative activity, and Global Knowledge Base submittals.

The QP team representative reviewed the software changes that were installed in September and December of 2010, including the ability to configure just how and when your chat users can be picked up by someone else in your group or the 24/7 Cooperative, customizing the messages your chat users see while they wait for a librarian, and how to close your queue at the end of your shift.  During those installs we also increased the number of attachments that you can send with an emailed answer, and we were able to add and revise a number of fields for the 24/7 Cooperative policy page template.

The update led into an announcement of the Qwidget roll up program, now open to all 24/7 Cooperative members who request it, and the limits governing its use—that is, maintenance of an overall 75% answering percentage (number of chat sessions of any kind picked up by your librarians, divided by the number of sessions requested by your patrons).

Although it was completed in the summer of 2010, we had not yet fully reported on the survey that 773 of you responded to.  In these sessions, we briefly covered the demographics of respondents and their familiarity with QuestionPoint and its components.  Noting that the three highest priorities you indicated for development were Search Transcripts, Custom Chat Wait Messages, and Optimization for Mobile Devices, we reported that all three were “in the works” or completed.  In fact, in the What’s Next slide, availability of a new Search Transcripts feature was announced for May. 

Each update was followed by discussion on topics that varied from session to session.  Below we synthesize all discussion into one list.

Reporting: The need for more robust reporting options in QuestionPoint.  One discussion centered on being able to determine turnaround time of email questions based on an individual library’s business hours.  Another focused on reports by day of week.  Both options are in the QuestionPoint enhancement requests tracking system but have not yet been scheduled for implementation.  One user asked about reporting by the hour;  a fourth comment was that we need to make a clearer distinction between local and cooperative traffic in reports, and a fifth asking how to report on older data.  In one session we were able to go live to show users the daily reports in the QP Reports module and where one can see local versus Cooperative traffic breakdown; this brief demo also went to the Ask >> Review Transcripts >> Offline module to show service history reporting.   (The recording of the Reports Webinar in June 2010 is available at http://questionpoint.org/education/index.html.) 

Question Tagging: Tagging questions in more than one way, so that librarians could, for example, pull up especially urgent questions and also categorize them by subject specialty.  Descriptive Codes, now completely customizable, were discussed in this context as one possible option already available to users.

Multiple simultaneous referral options:  QuestionPoint should allow referral to more than resource at a time.  This means too much time can pass before a suitable answer is crafted for the waiting user.  This is a workflow problem logged in the QuestionPoint enhancements list.

Library Visibility:  What can the larger Cooperative community do to help raise the awareness of libraries?  In the age of one commercial ask-a service after another, young users are already forming their lifetime habits for finding information and thus overlooking one of the best, most reliable, and least expensive (i.e., free), sources.  Joanne John talked about how the Enquire (UK) libraries partner with Yahoo Answers as a Knowledge Partner.  Enquire librarians answer questions in two subject areas.  Having been named over and over again the best Knowledge Partner, based on user voting, Enquire is garnering national awareness by Internet users.  Jo will consider doing a presentation for other users on this relationship with Yahoo and its outcomes.  Susan McGlamery also pointed to the link placement brochure (http://www.oclc.org/us/en/services/brochures/214348usb_QuestionPoint_Link_Placement.pdf) introduced last summer, as a guideline to visibility on your own website. 

QuestionPoint as an assessment tool:  Some members responded positively to the idea that the new Search Transcripts feature may be able to facilitate this.

National Virtual Reference service:  Susan McGlamery addressed this topic best and suggests interested librarians read the overview (in this blog) of the ALA program on the topic.   You can also visit the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-VR/195251883818304 or follow and participate in Twitter discussion on the subject, using the hash tag #nationalvr.

Suggestions: 

• Update QuestionPoint UI, making it less text-based, possibly using embedded videos
• Include a site map on the Wiki page and in QuestionPoint.org to facilitate finding materials
• More control of when and how surveys are distributed to the user
• Mechanism to preserve checked items when attempting to execute a bulk activity (such as Delete) from a questions list but leaving the list to view the full record

Miscellaneous notes on answers to questions:

1. Queue roll up clarification.  Roll up of the Qwidget to the 24/7 Cooperative level is under the control of QuestionPoint team members.  It cannot be done by administrators.  But group administrators can control the roll up of an individual Qwidget monitored by one group to the larger group of which it is a member (in the case of Maryland).  Although Qwidgets are implemented at the institution level, roll up is controlled by the queue to which an institution belongs; it is not controlled on an institution by institution basis.  Also, a private queue for which a Qwidget has been implemented can be rolled up (by the group administrator) to the group. 
2. Maryland is initiating a program to recognize its librarians and their best transcripts.  The program is to be called Rock Stars and will utilize the Descriptive Codes feature to identify "Rock Star" librarians.
3. The fact that an email-partner referral that has been replied to is still sending a Recall message to the original partner upon a second referral is a bug.  It has been logged.

To listen to a recording of the Virtual User Group meeting, please use this link: https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/lsr.php?AT=dw&SP=MC&rID=46461367&rKey=824ca245d923456e

Below are just the slides. 

Virtual User Group Meeting

 

For questions regarding this or other Virtual User Group meetings, contact Paula Rumbaugh at rumbaugh@oclc.org.

 

Virtual User Group meetings: Feb 8 and 9

We look forward to “seeing” you at the First 2011 QuestionPoint Virtual User Group meeting!  This virtual meeting will be held at 3 different times February 8-9, to accommodate the many time zones of the QuestionPoint global community.  We will cover the enhancements that have been implemented since our last meeting and provide information on what we expect to install for our next release, currently planned for mid-April.   We’ll also share feedback from the User Group meeting held at ALA Midwinter.

Our update should take around 20 minutes.  The remaining hour will be yours to discuss topics of interest to you.  Between now and February 8 please e-mail me topics on which you’d like to hear some discussion.  Send your requests to paula_rumbaugh@oclc.org.

Please choose one of the following sessions. (Times are shown for both the Eastern time zone in the U.S. and GMT time for international participants.)  Registration is required so we can distribute the necessary log-in/call-in information to you.  Please be sure that messages from messenger@webex.com are allowed through to you so your confirmation and log-in information is not caught in a spam blocker.

Tuesday, 8 February, 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM ET (13:00 to 14:30 GMT)  We hope this time will be convenient for European, South African, and Middle Eastern users. Please register at https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/j.php?ED=149537987&RG=1&UID=0&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D. 

Tuesday, 8 February, 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM ET (4:00 PM to 5:30 PM PT; 00:00 to 01:30, 9 February, GMT)  We expect western North American and Central American users to find this time best for them, as well as Australian and Asian users.  Please register at https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/j.php?ED=149538322&RG=1&UID=0&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D.

Wednesday, 9 February, 11:00 to 12:30 ET (16:00 to 17:30 GMT)  Best for eastern and central North America and South America.  Please register at https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/j.php?ED=149538452&RG=1&UID=0&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D. 

Sessions will be conducted in English; they will be recorded for those who cannot attend.

--The QuestionPoint Team

Aug 31, 2010 QuestionPoint Virtual User Group Recording

The second 2010 Virtual User Group meeting was held on 31 August and 1 September.

Please visit http://www5.oclc.org/questionpoint/QP_VUG_20100831.wmv to view a recording of the 31 August meeting.

Our first session, timed for the convenience of U.S. users, had between 40 and 50 attendees at any one time.  Our second session was attended by 28-30 users at any one time.  That session was timed for the convenience of western U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, and Australia and Asia.  The third session, timed for Europe and the eastern U.S., had 35 attendees.

The meeting was led off with and update to the community on who our members are, where they are from, and how many transactions they have generated over the year and since QuestionPoint’s introduction.  After the 24/7 Cooperative update, results of the Qwidget roll-up pilot were presented.  We reviewed the last year of QuestionPoint releases, highlighting the evolved Qwidget (customization, Facebook access, mobile version), texting integration via Text a Librarian, Knowledge Base web service, customized Descriptive Codes, and type ahead for chat sessions.

We introduced our new brochure Best Practices for Link Placement (available under the “Promote Your Service” section of the QuestionPoint wiki (http://wiki.questionpoint.org),

QuestionPoint survey results:  The 2010 QuestionPoint survey was open from the end of June to the first week of August.  773 librarians responded (22% from non-U.S. countries).  We discussed the top 3 priorities for QuestionPoint, as voted on by survey respondents, and the QuestionPoint team will be scheduling these 3 items for further investigation and possible development:

1. Search transcripts
2. More and customizable wait messages for chat patrons
3. Optimize all forms for mobile devices

Finally, we discussed the upcoming September install (currently scheduled for September 19), which will feature:

1. Queue management options for group (BME) administrators – this will govern how long local librarians see a question before it rolls up to the next level
2. Attachments per answer will be increased to 4, with a maximum size per attachment of 5 MB and a total maximum of 12 MB per answer
3. Changes to the Policy Pages template, as approved by the 24/7 Cooperative Advisory Board
4. The URL “minimizer” will appear on all Answer pages
5. Some optimizations of forms for mobile devices will be implemented (with more planned for future installs)

Following the update, we opened the “floor” to discussion.  We went live to a QuestionPoint account and walked through the pages in the Ask module, focusing on the Answer page.  There are several buttons on that page, and not all of them are immediately clear to users, so we defined each button and described what happens with each, what the status is after, and what statistics are generated.  We did much the same with Offline reviews (Ask > Review Transcripts > Offline), which is how users can get reports on transactions older than 90 days.

Although no further discussion topics were suggested, we did have the following questions:

Q: Will libraries that were in the Qwidget roll-up pilot continue to roll up in the interim between the pilot and the start of the roll-up program?

A: Yes, we will not stop the roll up for those in the pilot if they continue to maintain a 75% answering percentage.

Q: How long does the URL generated by the URL minimizer on the Answer page last? 

A: The “minimizer” is currently on the Answer page for text messages and will be on all Answer pages with the September install.  The utility we are using for that feature is the bit.ty utility; according to their website, they intend to maintain the shortened URL in perpetuity.

Q: Can we add time zones to the half hour in our profile set up? 

A: Some of our users, especially in Australia, are in time zones on the half hour.  We realize that having to look at transcripts time-stamped a half hour off from when they really happened is an inconvenience.  We have entered a problem ticket to track this request for implementing in the future.

Q: How are answering percentages calculated? 

A: We looked at the Reports module in a live account and demonstrated how to find the total chat sessions requested at your institution or group, and the total sessions your librarians accepted.  Divide the Accepted sessions by the Requested sessions to get answering percentage.  If you are in the 24/7 Cooperative, it does not matter who answered your patrons or whose patrons your librarians helped; simply divide all accepts by all requests for your percentage.

February 2010 Virtual User Group Meetings

Thanks to all our users for helping to make the first 2010 Virtual User Group meeting a success. Just under 100 users joined us for the QuestionPoint update on software and community and a discussion on future enhancements for QuestionPoint and quality issues in the 24/7 Reference. The first session was hosted by Carol Bonnefil, Senior Product Analyst; the second by Paula Rumbaugh, Senior Product Analyst; and the third by Susan McGlamery, Senior Product Manager and Manager of the 24/7 Cooperative.

A. QP software update

New features we talked about include KB web service and Qwidget evolution, including Qwidget on Facebook, WorldCat Local, and via selected mobile devices (iPhone O/S, Palm and Android devices).

B. Text a Librarian

QuestionPoint is currently developing an API so text messages sent from users to the library via Text a Librarian (“TAL”) will appear in the QuestionPoint interface.  Librarians will be able to work completely within QP to review and respond to text messages.  Text messages will be included in the usual QP reports, along with email, chat and Qwidget statistics.  Representative Gabe Macias attended the Thursday session and answered a few questions from attendees. For more information on Text a Librarian, visit http://www.textalibrarian.com/. 

Attached, below, is a link to the recording of the first session, held on February 3. If you wish to hear specifically the recording of one of the other two sessions and have not already received a link, please send your request to Becky Hawk (hawkb@oclc.org). We are also attaching a link to the PPT that we used for the update.

A number of questions were asked throughout the three sessions of the meeting, primarily regarding the mobile Qwidget capability and how text messages will be handled in QuestionPoint after the launch of the Text a Librarian / QuestionPoint collaborative implementation.

Here are a few of those questions:

Is co-browse basically “dead”? Co-browse continues to be available on QuestionPoint, and we currently have no plans to discontinue it. However, it will get less and less usable, and we and others are investigating using other methods to demonstrate search techniques to users. Two products mentioned were Jing and Camtasia, with which the librarian can take a video of her movements and send that to the patron.
Will texting (referring to the Text a Librarian / QuestionPoint collaboration) be available in the UK? Unfortunately, we will not be able to offer that option to the UK community. We will be happy to hear from you, though, about any web service in the UK that provides a service similar to what TAL does in the U.S.

Can we continue to use the TAL interface if we subscribe to both Text a Librarian and QuestionPoint? You can but it is not advisable; in fact, there will be a message when you log into TAL cautioning you to handle the work from within QuestionPoint. The reason for that is that API built to handoff text messages to QuestionPoint and to receive answers back does not transfer any librarian information. Nor does it transfer work done within Text a Librarian to QuestionPoint. It acts as an intermediary, passing and recording messages from the patron to QP and back. Any work done from within TAL would not be recorded in QuestionPoint; the QP question history would be incomplete, statuses out of date, and librarian work unrecorded.

Can we use the “old” style Qwidget in Facebook or for mobile patrons? No, you must use the new style Qwidget, which was implemented in Aug. 2009. If you have not upgraded to that version, we encourage you to do so: set-up is as simple as it has always been, but you and your patrons will experience more flexibility and options.

What you said you want to see in QuestionPoint:

Full-text searching of questions and by e-mail address.
A search mechanism on the policy page. In the meantime, we suggest you use the browser’s “Find” feature to help get your around a policy page.
Ability to export all reports to Excel and a link to a graphing feature. Just a reminder that you can highlight any and all Reports data with your browser, copy, and paste into an Excel spreadsheet cell.

An updated QuestionPoint interface, especially terminology.

More kinds of notification in Ask, such as different sounds for different kinds of transactions (e.g., follow-ups vs. e-mail)

Combined Review Transcripts and Question Lists, as there is not a clear distinction between the two kinds of lists. Librarians want to be able to do activity from the Review Transcripts area, such as send answers to patron, referring to other libraries. We do know that BME administrators have often needed this kind of functionality. Since this involves permissions for someone not logged in as an institution administrator or librarian to manipulate data for an institution, this is not an insignificant enhancement, technically or legally.

An Undo button to change resolution code.

Conference mode for IM in chat.

Ability to send surveys out to patrons later, not associated with a particular question

Various new reports, e.g., turnaround time for e-mails.

New Profile fields, such as a field about recurring assignments; an FAQ toward the top. A different policy page template for academics vs publics.

Quality issues you mentioned:

Most issues seem to revolve around problems chat librarians have in remembering that they aren’t necessarily helping a “Local” patron. What can QP do to make it more obvious to the chatting librarian that a patron isn’t Local (colors, bolding, for example)?
E-mail addresses are needed to do follow up! It is good practice to set up your Qwidget to require e-mail, now that that option is available. We suggested that libraries finding this to be an issue start a blog topic or entreat libraries via the listserv. There was a request to also see the patron e-mail from Qwidgets in the librarian interface, something that is not currently possible.

Apparently there are several instances of middle schoolers who somehow end up in the Academic queue. If anything can be done to prevent this, it would be appreciated.

What are the different philosophies and expectations of the various members in the Cooperative? Some institutions, e.g., want more chats marked for follow up because they often find that they want to include more information or more sources or more strategy. But they don't want to have to review all transcripts. On the other hand are libraries that want fewer marked for follow up. One attendee said her institution considers many chat questions in-depth research questions, but she suspects some other libraries assume chat to be a quick request for a quick answer. A discussion around this topic--Is it possible to more closely fulfill varying library expectations?—might make a good theme for the next Virtual User Group meeting.

To listen to the session of February 3, please go to:

https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/ldr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=37997267&rKey=e6442d81a06e8f38

Here are the slides we used for the update:

February 2010 Update

QP Virtual User Group February 2010

View more presentations from OCLC.

Virtual User Group Meeting Scheduled

It’s time again for a QuestionPoint Virtual User Group meeting!  This virtual meeting will be held at 3 different times during the first week of February, to accommodate the many time zones of our QuestionPoint global community.  We will provide information on the latest enhancements to the Qwidget (mobile Qwidget, Qwidget on Facebook, and Qwidget customization options), our new knowledge base web service, and a community update.  We will also discuss our collaboration with Text a Librarian and plans for incorporating SMS texting into QuestionPoint,   This update is similar to the one provided at the user group meeting at ALA Midwinter, January 2010.

We want to hear your feedback too!  We will have 2 discussion topics during the meeting:

1.  Next steps for QuestionPoint software: tell us what you think.

2.  What are the top quality issues you see with cooperative reference services, such as the 24/7 Reference Cooperative?

We look forward to hearing your comments and ideas for QuestionPoint!

Please choose one of the following sessions.  Registration is required so we can distribute the necessary log-in/call-in information to you.

Wednesday Feb 3, 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM PT (7:00 PM to 8:30 PM ET; 00:00 to 01:30 GMT, Feb. 4)  Western North and South America, Hawaii, Australia, and Asia.  Please register at https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/j.php?ED=132951852&RG=1&UID=0

Thursday Feb 4, 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM ET (20:00 to 21:30 GMT)  We expect most of QuestionPoint's North American and South American users to find this time best for them.  Please register at https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/j.php?ED=132945357&RG=1&UID=0

Friday Feb 5, 13:00 to 14:30 GMT (8:00 AM to 9:30 AM ET)  We hope this time will be convenient for our European, South African, and Middle Eastern users.  Please register at https://oclc.webex.com/oclc/j.php?ED=132946172&RG=1&UID=0

Sessions will be recorded for those who cannot attend.

User Group Meeting, In-Person and Virtual

As most of you know, we have just completed a series of User Group meeting sessions, one in-person session at ALA and three virtual sessions.  One VUG session (recording at http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=son2vp68) was held at a time that would be convenient for European, South African, and Middle East users.  A second session was timed for the western Americas, Australian, and Asian users, and a third session for the Americas.

The agenda and content for all sessions were the same:

• Update on network issues
• Upcoming enhancements and features
• Community update
• Joining a virtual group for referral purposes
• Discussion questions:
  • What would you like to see in a QP reference service using texting/SMS?
  • What do you need to see in library policy pages

Some users present acknowledged that response time problems had improved somewhat over the last few weeks as we continue to tweak the the QP database to optimize it in its new environment.  We will continue to work with this to return QuestionPoint to its remarkably good response-time state before mid-May.

Attendees demonstrated considerable interest in the Qwidget “evolution” by the number of questions they asked, particularly concerning the plans to optimize the Qwidget for operation from an iPhone, Android, and Palm pre.  We’re looking forward to user-librarian reception when we introduce the mobile Qwidget in the next several months.

Our first foray into texting via QuestionPoint also sparked interest and questions.  Using the popular Twitter service—free to all, independent of mobile phone communications providers, and available worldwide—library users with Twitter accounts will be able to “tweet” a question to the library via the library’s Twitter account (posted on the library’s website and, behind the scenes, bound to its QuestionPoint account) and receive a private response back in the same format.  The librarian, however, will be working within the familiar QuestionPoint interface to read and respond to all tweets.

After noting that we have added Peru and Brazil to our list of countries using QuestionPoint, we listed the newest members to the community.  Reinforcing recent posts to this blog and to the QuestionPoint-L list, we also talked about the opportunity for 24/7 Cooperative users to join a virtual group online, so they can refer user misdirected questions to the proper 24/7 library.  Details and step-by-step procedures to join are here: http://questionpoint.blogs.com/questionpoint_247_referen/2009/07/refer-sessions-to-other-coop-members-by-joining-the-247-cooperative-virtual-group.html.

At the in-person meeting at ALA, attendees said the following were the features they most wanted to see in a text-messaging service:

1. Have “texting as a Cooperative”, identifying local library with available policy pages

2. Automatic scripts with categories

3. In Ask mode, separate viewing only email, chat or text messages

4. Send text messages to email for possible further answer/referral

5. Be nimble: compete with ChaCha and KGB

6. Text to speak converter

During the VUG sessions, a couple of libraries in each session remarked on their experiences with a texting (SMS) service.  The experiences they related seem to range from very slightly used to good, steady use.  One attendee noted that their druthers would be to have all enquiry statistics rolled into one service, so they would want to see similar features for SMS and chat.  Another suggested that like chat, they would want SMS as a cooperatively covered intake method, seconding one of the suggestions coming out of the ALA UG meeting.

Suggestions from all four sessions for additional information needed in policy pages included:

• Job hunting info/links to pages and library’s own employment information ; minimum age to work @ library; volunteer policies for library;
• No broken links – last updated note. Make sure all URLs are hyperlinks;
• More dummy library cards. Specify the PIN protocol. Specify how patron should get PIN if it’s forgotten;
• Define library lingo and who can do what: “hold”, “recall”, “reserve”;
• Specify how to locate fulltext articles. Information on how to access e-books and audio books;
• Step-by-step directions on “My Account” area, or provide dummy bar code so librarians can assist patrons;
• Be sure the policy page email contact is filled in – send any corrections to this;
• Be sure and put stuff not on the library web page into the policy page;
• Get your librarians to USE THE POLICY PAGES;
• Library equipment location and use;
• Links to library floor plan, if available online;
• Details of policies of library use (repeating some of what may appear in various places on a library’s web site);
• Policies of lending among campuses in big university systems, such as the University of California;
• How to retrieve/recover passwords;
• Word policy page information as though speaking directly to a patron, since this information is often pasted right into a response;
• Automatic reminder to update policy pages, as they all too quickly become outdated.

We hope all attendees and others who could not attend will be able to join us at our next Virtual User Group meeting, to be scheduled during the fall quarter.  Our next in-person UG meeting will most likely be at ALA Midwinter 2010.  Watch this space for announcements!

IFLA 2009: invitation to virtual reference meeting

Dear QuestionPoint librarians,

If you are attending IFLA in Milan, or if someone from your institution will be attending, please consider joining us for a discussion with your colleagues around the world as we explore the state of virtual reference services today. This will be an opportunity to network and to share your experiences with colleagues,  best practices, and ways to better serve our users.  All are welcome, so please do pass along the invitation to whoever is attending IFLA and would be interested.

The meeting will be held on Monday 24 August, 11.30 – 12.30, at the Hotel Melia Milano, La Palma Room. If you are able to attend, please register here: https://www3.oclc.org/app/ifla_registration/

Please let me know if you have questions about the meeting, and I hope to see you in Milan!

Regards,
Susan

Susan McGlamery
QuestionPoint senior product manager

_{edited to update the meeting room}